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The Fork in the Road

January
22, 2014 -Business leaders are
catching on, even in the United States.Yesterday, a report authored, in part, by over 100academics, energy experts, government
officials, and business leaders called upon the President to address climate
change by taking measures that do not require congressional approval.

Spear-headed
by the Center for the New Energy Economy (CNEE) at Colorado State University,
the report grew out of a meeting convened last March, attended by the President
and 14 corporate and private sector leaders.They spoke for hundreds of like-minded individuals who want
to reshape the country’s energy policy.

The
resulting 207-page report contains around 200 recommendations regarding the use
of executive authority to enact the climate change action plan the President
announced last June.Former
Colorado Governor Bill Ritter released the report, briefing cabinet officials
and senior policy staff whose focus is energy and climate policy.

The
report recommends that officials concentrate on five main areas: doubling
energy efficiency, financing renewable energy, producing natural gas more
responsibly, developing alternative fuels and vehicles, and helping utilities
adapt to the country’s changed energy landscape.It highlights measures that every federal agency can take to
mitigate global warming and its effects.

Unfortunately,
the White House still has a goal of only a 17 percent reduction in carbon
emissions below 2005 levels by 2020, a shockingly stupid target, considering
how much lower than that emissions need to be.This easily achievable goal is mere window dressing, the
only unserious aspect of the report.

Specific
recommendations made in the report include working with electric utilities and
regulators to update regulations that serve as a barrier to clean energy
technology, and reforming the tax code in order to make it fairer for private
investors who wish to provide capital for clean energy development.

One
of the reports most interesting suggestions calls for a federal process to
account for the full costs of various energy choices, including health
impacts.By establishing these
costs, the administration would be better able to select a ”best of the above”
energy strategy, as opposed to its current “all of the above” approach.

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